In the art of building construction, it is known to apply panels, such as siding panels or the like, to a wall of a building. Frequently such panels are constructed of vinyl siding, hardboard, aluminum or the like. Examples of such panels and their application to a building exist in U.S. Pat. No. 5,729,946, the complete disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference.
Similarly, roofing panels may like wise be applied.
Whether applying the panels as siding, onto vertical studs, or as roofing panels onto sloped roof rafters, it is generally commonplace that there is first applied a sheet building material to the supports, whether the supports are wall studs or roof rafters. The siding or roofing panels may then be applied outside the sheet building material.
Often, it is desirable that the siding or roofing panels be secured to these supports by means of fasteners applied through the panels, through the sheet building material, and into the studs or rafters, such that the studs or rafters carry the weight of the panels. In some instances, the sheet building material may exist for reasons other than structural reasons. For example, the sheet building material might be polystyrene foam insulation, fiberglass impregnated material, flakeboard, etc. which may not be as structurally supportive as other materials, such as plywood. In such cases, it is especially desirable that the studs or rafters, rather than the sheet building material, carry the weight of the panel. In other instances, as for example, where the sheet building material is plywood or the like, the sheet building material may not be sufficiently thick that it provides a good secure structure for fastening the panels to it, making it therefore more desirable that the panels be fastened through the sheet building material into the studs or rafters.
Thus, in many such applications of building panels to buildings, the sheet building material that is first applied directly to the studs or rafters visually obscures the precise locations of the studs or rafters behind the sheet building material, in whole or in part.
The present invention is direct to providing a means for directing the person who is applying fasteners to panels, to the locations of studs or rafters, after the first fastener has been applied through a panel to a stud or rafter, such that successive fasteners applied through a lip of a panel may easily be guided to second, third, fourth, etc. successive studs or rafters. To this end, indicia means is provided along an upper lip of the panel, for guiding the installer from stud-to-stud, or from rafter-to-rafter, based upon known pre-set spacing between adjacent studs or rafters.
For example, in many types of buildings, it is commonplace that vertical studs are located sixteen inches apart. To this end, after a panel has been applied to a first stud, for example, at one end of a house wall, it is simply a matter of using the indicia means that exist on panels of the present invention, to measure sixteen inches farther along that lip, for placement of a second fastener that will find a substantially hidden stud located behind the sheet building material, then another sixteen inches to find the location of a third stud, etc., continuing along the panel until the end thereof. The same can exist when applying panels along a roof to roof rafters or other supports, by applying fasteners through panels, through sheet building material, and into the underlying supports.
The indicia means in accordance with this invention can take various forms, such as graduations, numerical indications such as those of a ruler or the like, alpha-numeric visual indicators, geometric markings, letters, a series of notches, a repeated series of letters, etc. The manner of application can be by ink jet printing, roller marking, roller notching, or any other process that will produce a visible indication.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of this invention to provide building panels with indicia along a lip thereof, to assist in locating fastener zones for driving fasteners through the panels, and into structural supports.
It is a further object of this invention to accomplish the above objects, wherein the panels are applied outside other sheet building material, which, in turn, has been applied to structural members.
It is another object of this invention to accomplish the above objects, wherein the panels may be applied to structural supports such as studs, roof rafters or the like, wherein the studs, roof rafters or other supports are visually obscured by intervening sheet building material.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be readily understood by a reading of the following brief descriptions of the drawing figures, detailed descriptions of the preferred embodiments, and the appended claims.